I always laugh when someone finds the fewest words to describe a complicated situation. My old boss at Pacific Bell, Mike, was a master of philosophical brevity. I remember one day working in the technology lab where several of us shared work benches. We were having an ongoing debate about the use of one of the drawers. One faction wanted it to be used for screwdrivers and such. The others felt it was the ideal place for keeping snacks. This led to the inevitable witticism that it “depended if you wanted to eat or screw.”
But Mike hadn’t yet registered his opinion and we needed a tie-breaker. So my coworker asked, “Well, Mike, would you rather eat or screw?” Mike thought for a moment and said, “Depends how hungry I am.”
You’ve seen me yammer on, post after post, about free will and human motivation, and seeing things in black and white versus shades of gray. Mike nailed all of that in a sentence. If aliens someday visit and want to understand people, they can read everything in the Library of Congress or Mike’s one sentence.
My friend Josh has the brevity knack too. My favorite was his summation of the comic Marmaduke, about a Great Dane. It’s been in newspapers for about half a century. That’s about 18,000 Marmaduke comics. Josh’s summary: “Big dog is on something you want.”
To be fair, a wag once described Dilbert as “My boss is dumb.” But that’s just being cruel.
I was reminded of my love for brevity when I read a comment on this blog from Stuart Booth. He said, “I reduced my world view to ‘people who are important’ and ‘people who are too stupid to be important.’ Everything else is just scenery.”
I laughed out loud the first time I read it. I still chuckle when I reread it. Calling the universe “scenery” takes brevity to a new level of delicious.
I’ve described the clash of Islam and Christianity – everything from the Crusades to the war on terror – as “The people who think a guy walked on water versus the people who think a horse can fly.” I submit that anything you add to that description is unnecessary for understanding the global clash of civilizations.
Comedian Larry Miller once described America’s war strategy in Iraq as “Driving around until people shoot at us.” That’s the sort of observation that makes me think our history books are way too long.
Do you have a favorite philosophical brevity?